Superman on Television
Superman: The Animated Series - Episode Reviews
Season 2 - Episode 4: "Speed Demons"
Original Air Date: September 13, 1997Reviewed by: Jeffrey Taylor
"Flash, this morning I thought you were just a hyperactive jerk, but you're ok."
As a major Superman fan, I'm often asked who is faster, Superman or The Flash. They've raced many times in different incarnations of the characters. Since this is the Superman Homepage and not everyone will know the history of the Flash, here's a crash course. In the early 1940's Jay Garrick was the Flash, a member of the Justice Society of America, who was later relegated to a different dimension of Earth. Barry Allen, a forensics specialist for the police, became the flash in Showcase #4 in 1956, but died in the middle of 1985-86's Crisis on Infinite Earths. By the end of that series, Wally West, who had been Barry Allen's sidekick Kid Flash for many years, became the new Flash for the big post-crisis, line-wide DC reboot in 1987. Flash has additional speed-based powers like the ability to vibrate through solid matter, such as walls. For many years Flash's powers came from eating a LOT of high calorie foods, which his body would burn while running. That is until the mid-1990's when he found he could tap into a "speed force" instead. Although the secret identity of The Flash in this episode was never revealed, it's a safe assumption that it's none other than Wally West. Most of Superman: The Animated Series drew from Superman's reboot in 1987 and much of the series follows a parallel with the comics of the time. Plus the Justice League and Justice League Unlimited cartoons, which were partly a continuation of established stories and characters from this series and Batman: The Animated Series, prominently stated that Wally West was the man behind the mask. He changed voices from this series to that one, but then again, so did Superman.
So who is faster? Well, you take a character like Superman who can fly and has super-strength and speed, plus all his other abilities like the vision powers and even superbreath and put him against a character whose ONLY ability is to be incredibly fast, one would expect the speed-only candidate to be the winner, but in the silver age, it just wasn't that simple.
Superman first raced The Flash in 1967 in Superman #199, but they tied. Just a few months later in Flash #175, they had a rematch, but readers were shown a picture of the two crossing the finish line together and told to make up their own minds about the winner. In World's Finest #198-199 from 1970, they raced again and Flash won, but to be fair, they both crawled to the finish line. The definitive answer came in 1990, in Adventures of Superman #463 when the Flash (Wally West) finally won a race against Superman.
Why did it take so long to decide who was faster? The Flash has his fans, but Superman was the number one comic book hero for about 50 years. Either character winning would have meant that one was better than the other, even in such a small way, so they avoided it. It's become one of those questions that passive fans often ask me, along with who would win in a fight, Superman or Batman (to which I say, it depends how much Kryptonite is involved).
Rating - 4 (out of 5): What Flash episode would be complete without a quintessential Flash Rogue. The Flash's Rogue gallery is seconded only by Batman's in the DCU. In this case Weather Wizard was a good choice against the combination of Flash and Superman. Weather Wizard, or Mark Mardon, has the ability to control Earth's weather using a device created by his brother, Ben. Remember that this Superman can be hurt by electricity, so the ability to harness lightning could allow the villain both the speed and strength to take on both the heroes. When Ben Mardon created the weather equipment, he'd intended to use it for the good of mankind. It's the classic Cain and Abel story, even down to the attempted murder. "Attempted" only because this is a kid's show.
Superman and Flash spent portions of the episode as blue and red lines, showing their progress as they raced around the world 100 times. Obviously the Flash couldn't fly, so Superman ran along side him. Along the way, they crossed oceans, which Flash could run across. Remember that running on water is actually proper physics for a body moving at Flash's speed.
While our heroes were occupied with the race, Weather Wizard made ransom demands of the Military and showed his might by attacking the northern coast of Australia. Go Aussies. The storm he created caused a tanker to crash into rocks and spill oil into the water. Here's where a few story problems pop up. Superman and Flash were racing across the water near enough for Superman to notice the storm. He flew off the path and set the tanker right, pushed it away from the rocks and closed up the leak in the hull. The Flash then ran around in a circle in the water, cleaning up the oil. So where exactly did that oil go. How did a whirlpool make it all disappear and leave no ecological consequences?
Weather Wizard's final assault was to create an enormous hurricane over Metropolis. He's a Keystone City villain in an episode with a Keystone City hero. It would have been cool if Mardon was attacking his home city so we could actually see it.
To get past Weather Wizard's home defense system, which was lightning based, Superman spun like a drill into the ground and entered through the basement. It reminded me of the scene in Superman: The Movie when Superman was looking for Lex Luthor's poison gas pellet. In fact, those two scenes were put together in the huge Superman "all movie/all TV" trailer released around 2005 to promote DVD's.
Of course the heroes fought the villain who accidentally destroyed his own house and equipment while fighting them. At the end, Superman and Flash considered that they hadn't finished their race yet and took off to complete it.
Yep. That's where it ends. No answer. But you weren't really surprised, were you? But don't worry. History tells us that either Flash will win or they'll tie.
Flash's costume remained loyal to its comic book origins with the standard bold red and yellow. Weather Wizard on the other hand looked completely different wearing a laboratory jumpsuit and bad early 1980's sunglasses - the ones that used to cost a dollar and didn't offer UV protection. This episode contained a lot of action and showed it well. The parts where Flash and Superman were racing and represented by red and blue lines felt a little cheesy. Although I honestly can't think of a better way to show it, short of animating 3 minutes of running from different angles, which would probably become tiresome to watch anyway.
The Flash was voiced by yet another Police Academy alumnus, Charlie Schlatter (Police Academy: Mission to Moscow, TV's The Batman). He was not the best choice for the role, but that may be a biased opinion since I still expect to hear Michael Rosenbaum's voice when I see the Flash animated. Schlatter actually came off a bit creepy in a few scenes, including when he hit on Lois in the beginning, and he didn't bring out Flash's fun side as well as Rosenbaum did later.
Weather Wizard/Mark Mardon was played by Miguel Ferrer (Robocop, TV's Bionic Woman) who also plays Martian Manhunter in Justice League: The New Frontier. His brother Ben Mardon was voiced by Lorin Dreyfuss, who sometimes does voiceover work in place of his brother Richard Dreyfuss. Carl Lumbly played the Mayor and later he was the Martian Manhunter on the Justice League series. General Richter was voiced by guest star Marion Ross (Marion Cunningham on Happy Days, also TV's Gilmore Girls).
Back to the "Superman: The Animated Series - Episode Reviews" Contents page.
Back to the main TELEVISION page.